He Who Searches for Himself - Chapter 38 (2nd half)

[yuuki]

... First Half ...

Ed put his cheek down onto the cold stone floor and his eyes again scanned the level of the floor - was it flat from this angle? Did it slope? Did it have hills? Did it dip in the centre? If water were spilt on the floor, which direction would it drain? It could have all been important.

By this point in their day, Edward and Winry had mapped out the transmutation circle and the Thule Hall down to the depth of the grooves dug into the stone.

Ed shook his head to finish off a conversation that had been going on for some time, "Naw, I only opened a Russian dictionary so I could try and read Tsiolkovsky's work."

"But you never went?" Winry flipped her pencil and took an eraser to her sheet.

"Hell no," he wrinkled his nose at the suggestion, "after the Romanovs were killed, that country had more issues than Germany… didn't need to deal with that."

Winry took a few steps forward, opening her mouth to speak, but her words, motions, and actions suddenly froze like her world had been paused. Edward watched her stop and chilled over as well. Neither spoke, neither moved - both of them listening… hearing the sound of the hall's ground-level entry door creak and crack open. A rush of winter air flooded down the stairwell and blew into the hall; neither body moved nor breathed. They both waited with pounding hearts, listening for a footstep or a voice.

The ground level door slammed shut.

Ed burst to his feet, sweeping his spreads of notes into the shoulder bag they'd brought, Winry doing the same. The sound of footsteps from the intruder made their way down slowly, casually, and uninterested. In a flurry motion, the bag was thrown over his shoulder and Ed rushed to grab Winry as she tossed her notepad and loose sheets into her own shoulder bag. With a yank on her arm, Ed brought her to the edge of the transmutation circle closest to the exit and they turned to face the wretched symbol - their backs to the hall entrance.

They had not wanted to be interrupted; Ed was hoping to high hell that they would not get interrupted. He was so close to getting this finished, why couldn't he have had another thirty minutes of peace? At least there was a plan to deal with this and Ed took a deep breath. Winry glanced nervously to him and they stood, facing the centre of the room, waiting for the visitor to arrive.

Footsteps slowed and echoed clearly as the final few steps into the lower floor came to pass. Ed turned over his shoulder casually, watching as the moving feet and legs belonging to the footsteps came into view.

"Hello?" Ed called out in German.

"Good afternoon," was the German answer. Like he'd ducked under a curtain, Rudolf Hess dipped his head as he slipped into the light falling in from overhead, "what in the world are you doing here, Edward?"

Of all the people Ed had not wanted to encounter - he could see the subtle insert of Nazi propaganda coming from miles away and Edward had pretty much had enough of it. Despite that, Ed's response was deliberately slow and casual, "Winry and I came by to pay some respects," he answered.

Hess gave Ed an odd glance for his answer, "That's surprising. I didn't think you were the type."

"It was Winry's idea."

"Ah," the visitor nodded and the answer became acceptable. Hess moved forwards, coming to stand next to Winry's open side and he looked down at the girl hopelessly lost in the German conversation. When she didn't even acknowledge his presence, Hess reached out and swept away the hair that framed her face, ringing a finger around Winry's ear and tucking her hair behind it. He mused over the frown she gave him and the appearance of Ed's hand firmly on her shoulder.

"How'd you two get in?" he asked.

"I still have dad's keys," Ed glanced down to his pocket, "What are you doing here? Aren't classes in until three or something?"

The man gave a nod, "I normally have class until three, yes…" Hess took a hefty breath and gave a forceful sigh, "but I've been out since my first class finished; business and things to tend to. It's been a long and boring day."

Any fledgling thought Ed had about dotting the Is and crossing his Ts on the Thule Hall map was erased - Hess would probably be here for a while. Ed mentally filed away their day's task and decided it was time to leave.

"What's that?" Hess raised an eyebrow at the white markings drawn on the floor.

Ed looked at the transmutation circle he'd drawn with white chalk and his thoughts seized up on him. He'd completely glazed over his circle even being there and suddenly found himself floundering for an excuse, "I… Dad enjoyed alchemy…" Ed began, "that was something I learnt from one of his books when I was a kid. Kind of a uh…" Ed's mouth went dry. Shit.

Hess saved Ed from his failed recovery, laughing and shooting him a grin, "I learn something new about you each time we meet. You're far more sentimental than I'd pictured you, Edward."

"Yeah…" Ed glanced away; sure, whatever satisfied Hess was fine with him, "Um, I'll find a broom or something to clean that up. Sorry."

"No, don't worry about it," Hess waved his hand dismissively, "I haven't done anything all day, I can take care of it for you."

Ed brow rose at the statement, "Thought you'd been dealing with business all day?"

"I have," Hess nodded, slipping his hands into his pockets, "I've been upstairs all day… waiting for whenever you decided to come up."

The room somehow managed to turn white to Edward's eyes, and all he reacted with was a lengthy blank stare, the darkly dressed silhouette carving into his mind amidst the bleached imagery. Ed had never experienced a more simply spoken statement that had turned the dynamics of his heartbeat, lungs, and stomach inside out so quickly.

"So it seems you've spent quite some time paying your respects," the words came out as smooth as running water, "it makes me wonder what you were actually doing."

There weren't too many times in his life where Ed had wanted to completely abandon an engagement and run, but this was one of them. Rudolf Hess unnerved Ed in a way Adolf Hitler could not - Hitler was proud, controlling, abrupt, and abrasive; when Hess wanted to be, he was powerful, stern, cold and calculating. Ed had seen this man kill without the slightest flinch more than once.

"Why the hell have you been waiting for me? How'd you know I was even here?"

"We've been observing you since your father died."

Ed swallowed the answer slowly. His arm secured around Winry's shoulder and Ed slowly pulled her away, "What for?"

"Curiosity," the man gave a shrug. Hess turned away from where Ed and Winry stood, slowly walking along the precipice of the light within the hall. His hands sat in his pockets, posture casual, interest in them appearing aloof. Each step he took through the hall sent ripples through the air, "I've been told you've been here since quarter to nine, what have you been doing?"

A hesitant pause came through in Ed's voice, "You've been observing us…" something snapped in the back of Edward's mind at a sickening realization and Ed's left arm unlatched from Winry as he took a step forward, his pointed finger flailing about. "You knew who attacked us… you've known all along! You fucking asshole, you've known who's attacked us the whole goddamn time and you played me at the Haushofers!" The ire in Ed's voice rose and the calm conversation came to an end, "Were the Haushofers in on it too? Were you all in on this for shits and giggles to see how I'd take it?"

"No, the Haushofers don't know," Hess shook his head, his words remaining flat and stoic in behind Edward's rancid outbursts, "but I am glad they listened to me when I suggested they retrieve you for your birthday and I'm glad you stayed with them when it was suggested, because your alchemy materials were catalogued over the nights you stayed," the man gave a moment of silence, deliberately allowing Edward's raging storm to flare; the look in the older Elric brother's gaze was incorrigible.

The daylight from above crashing in heavily from overhead as Hess's hand slipped behind the front fold of his jacket and produced the thick, leather bound book Hohenheim had written out for the Theory Beyond the Gate.

"Everything your father and you kept in that house, tucked away in shelves, shovelled into drawers or hidden under the couch was all carefully documented. I had this collected while you've been out today and I've been reading it while I've waited. But, for everything else, we did our best to be as unnoticeable in the house as possible. If we did leave anything slightly astray, you had been too out of sorts at the time to notice," from behind sealed lips, the man's tongue ran along his teeth, watching how the presentation of the book unnerved Edward further. Hess' footsteps came to a stop and he looked pointedly at the pair, "In fact, you had so much information I needed to send you away to that concert because there were a few things we wanted to double check." The book was rattled in Hess's hand.

The chilled air of the underground domain surged through Edward's lungs; if he had two good hands to rip this man to shreds with… "You people had no right to go through our house!"

"You have no right to that house," Hess's words continued to be firm and unwavering, "You have no rights in this land what so ever. You aren't German, you aren't even British, you are nothing to this world," there was finally a show of interest and a spark of life in Hess's words, and with weak joviality, he nearly smiled at Ed, "You are something called the FullMetal

Alchemist, who has no right and no claim to anything in this world."

What Edward Elric wouldn't have given to be able to burst at the seams and show this other-world man exactly what it meant to be the FullMetal Alchemist, because he obviously did not understand.

"You are a liar, a snake, a magician, and above all else: you are a sinner. As I have come to understand it, you have committed acts so astoundingly vile that I can't even begin to fathom what punishment still awaits you," Hess's words rolled off his tongue with a touch of revolt, "and this 'manuscript' further exemplifies the depths of your family's greedy, sinful desires."

The longer Hess spoke, the more Edward became aware that the amount of danger being forced down his throat was unfathomable. His heart thundered in his chest; they needed to leave - now.

In one quick sweep of his arm, Ed secured Winry's hand and began a hasty march away from the circle, out of the sunlit hall and towards the blackened exit; even the thought of attempting to retrieve his father's book from Hess wasn't entertained. Staying in the hall, with those kinds of words flying around, couldn't possibly be worth it, "I'll save you the effort of kicking us out."

Edward's eyes looked ahead to the darkened stairwell that even the sunlight couldn't reach. As his footsteps stormed along the cold floor, the dark shadows hiding in the stairwell moved. Ed's grip around Winry's hand tightened and his next steps retreated backwards; watching as the darkest points of the shadows swayed and rose, breathing like they wanted to be human. The darkness developed slow footsteps that echoed with strength and echoed with a voice that spoke with crass hate and malicious amusement, "Before you encounter the company we have waiting for the two of you upstairs, could you tell us about the FullMetal Alchemist… in your own words?"

Ed took another step back into the room, securing Winry behind himself, watching Adolf emerge from behind his dark veil in the stairwell, "He's retired."

Hess began a slowly paced circle around the outer most portions of the room, his footsteps clapping down like the powerful pendulum in a grandfather clock.

"A simple answer," Adolf nodded, sweeping each step he made towards them emphatically, "Now, would you recount for us the circumstances that you've shared to everyone here in Germany, and 'home' in London, regarding the cost of your arm and leg? So we may all hear it in your own words."

"I…" Ed's voice vanished as he stared horrified at the very first lie he'd had to take on to exist beyond the Gate. He saw the cataclysm coming and had no idea how to free himself from it, because Envy had undoubtedly told Adolf the truth. His grip on Winry's hand tightened, "You asshole."

Adolf's voice exploded, bursting like he carried the power to blow the stone walls out of the earth, "You lost them attempting to resurrect your family and you failed! You defied God: you attempted to take something from him that was no longer yours. You were greedy and selfish; a stupid child. While you served your ultimate punishment here, to hide all those perverse sins you had the nerve to tell any and every ear that would listen that you lost them in an air raid - a German air raid on the streets of London!" the man's arms flew out to his side, each movement of his body and point of his fingers emphasized by a snap in his body, "You dared to place blame on Germany to hide your true filth? God punished you and now you tell people that you are not at fault? You have people believe that we Germans are at fault for your decrepit form?"

Ed felt the free fingers of Winry's other hand curl deep into the fabric at the back of his coat, his hand still held tight, and Ed took a heavy breath - how was he supposed to get out of this? His heart raced madly, "I've never told anyone I wasn't at fault for that and I've never blamed anyone but myself for my arm or leg. Putting a wrinkle to your glorious German rise wasn't something I was doing."

"But you still let every man believe that an innocent German pilot was responsible for you. Every time a person looked at you with undeserved pity, you let this nation shoulder the blame to hide your sins," Adolf's words boomed in his chest, "Shameful cowardice seems to be one of your many detrimental companions."

Edward's jaw clenched, trying to take some solace from the hand that rubbed in between his shoulder blades, trying to keep him calm. Winry had no idea what this ragingly loud German conversation was about, but Edward had quite enough of this world's verbal bullshit.

His voice began to rise.

"Your country has killed millions of people. They went to war. They shot them in cold blood. They threw bombs and killed more," each sentence spoken drove Edward's voice a notch higher and his enunciation that much stronger, "This world created gasses that killed people slowly - you let people suffer to death. You tortured them. You flew in from the sky and killed innocent people without seeing their faces, and once the ammunition was gone the planes fled like cowards. Everyone on both sides, not just Germany, but everyone terrorized everyone else and when it was all done there were four million… four million people dead. FOR WHAT? What could you have possibly gained from four million deaths?" the inability to comprehend the world and the rage Edward felt for it echoed in the dome of the hall, "you kill people in droves because they aren't who and what you like! This world is nothing but death and you do it to yourselves. Why aren't you the coward? Why isn't everyone in Europe a sinful coward?"

A question posed for the entire world beyond that no one besides their non-existent God could answer.

Adolf's response came out sounding absolute, "It is the British and the French who are the sinful cowards, Edward Elric; both nations are run by the Jews. You have to fight a coward with coward's means."

Edward's jaw dropped, "You are fucking crazy."

Rolling his eyes, Adolf straightened his jacket with a sharp tug, "As your carcass has been deposited on our soil and your sorry existence has been brought in front of my eyes to clearly be seen, the ongoing sentence delivered to you from a world beyond shall continue to be administered at my discretion," his brow rose as his gaze strengthened with a thought, "we have established that you have no right to valuables or wealth from this land, so I will allow Envy the opportunity to see you lose everything."

Edward's eyes widened at the proclamation. As he searched the man's words for understanding, Edward's heart stopped when he realized he'd lost the location of Hess in the scene. Ed didn't use the moment he needed to place him, he didn't take the seconds needed to fully comprehend what Adolf had meant, and he didn't waste the time needed to determine the severity of everything. While Adolf Hitler stood unmoving before him, Edward Elric choked on his own breath and he spun on his toes, capturing Winry as she shrieked at the sound of two gunshots that burst deafeningly within the confines of the stone hall.

Crying hadn't been something Alphonse had expected to do.

The Gate was quiet again, so was Diana, and more or less so was he. The status quo of the Gate before Izumi had arrived had been reset, though Alphonse certainly didn't feel status quo, but the situation around him was.

The little Elric had cried for hours; just curled up on his side like a distraught young child. He wasn't in any physical pain, or excruciating circumstance, he just simply wanted to cry for so many things so badly… it felt like he hadn't cried in years.

When Alphonse had been in Rizembool with Izumi, Winry, Pinako, and everyone, he'd been told by Izumi that his memories had been part of the sacrifice Edward had used to bring him back.

That wasn't entirely right.

It hadn't been that Alphonse's memory had been sacrificed, it was what Ed had left out of the transmutation he executed to reclaim his brother.

Al had sacrificed himself first to save his brother's life and then Ed did the same to reclaim him. However, with the resurrection of Alphonse Elric, the transmutation had been a fundamentally incomplete process. While Al had been the Philosopher's Stone, Dante had instructed Gluttony to devour a portion of his metal body, because within Gluttony's stomach the Philosopher's Stone would crystallize. Since he'd been partially eaten, Al himself hadn't been whole when he'd vanished trying to transmute his brother, and the fact he had been the Philosopher's Stone drastically skewed his essential makeup. So when Edward had tried to bring his younger brother back through human transmutation, Ed had the formula complete, and everything was right, it was just the Gate didn't have enough material for Edward to wholly recreate his younger brother, because a portion of Al's existence remained attached to the Philosopher's Stone in Gluttony's stomach. Rather than leaving out an arm or a leg from the equation, Ed offered a chunk of Al's memory to make up for the deficiency. Memory carried more weight than physical form, so the Gate willingly accepted the deal and allowed Alphonse to be restored at his eleven-year-old state.

Now, that crystallizing chunk of his metallic Philosopher's Stone body - extracted from Gluttony's perishing form - was within Aisa. The moment Alphonse touched her he'd known it was there; he'd known instantly that it was Aisa's body now, infused with these Red Stones to preserve her flesh and human state, that was being used to continue the agonizingly slow process of crystallizing the Philosopher's Stone Gluttony had eaten. The wary feeling he'd perceived from Aisa as they stood at the Gate was a culmination of the emotional sense that missing five years of his life had been - a life that had been preserved as an imprint within the remaining Philosopher's Stone Al had once become.

Because of that, Alphonse Elric reclaimed every memory once he'd touched Aisa.

Being so close to the mouth of the Gate, the pinnacle point where all sacrifices are negotiated, a window had opened for Al to reach into and the boy ripped out his missing memories of from his imprint on the stone inside of Aisa. The reclamation of his memories had actually been easy, if not terribly uncomfortable.

Al had gotten something back for nothing, a lot of something: five years worth of memories. He'd completely bypassed the laws of Equivalent Exchange and the rules of the Gate. He hadn't used the Philosopher's Stone to take something; he'd taken something from the Philosopher's Stone itself.

Al spent the next several hours in tears on the ground - he'd been 'alive' for the last nine months, but from the perspective of the suit of armour he had just woken up. Al didn't have any one particular thing he was crying over, just a number of different things that made up to one big thing that was five years of his life and nine months of memory-less frustrations.

If Alphonse could look at himself as two different people, he could see the joy from the memory-less boy getting his memories back and also the sadness of what the whole of those memories were. He understood a little better why his family had been so reluctant to tell him so much of this information. From the boy who'd been armour for so long, he wanted to scream with joy or pass out from exhaustion. Every fear he'd had, even the lingering thoughts that Barry the Chopper had put into him, they had all been abolished because now Al was existing again as flesh and blood. He'd been actualized. The feeling of actualization was one of the things Al cried over - it was such a relief to feel free from the insecurities of the armour's inhumanity. Now, he wanted to do so much. He'd been doing things for nine months already, but Al's missing memories wanted to feel like they were now finally part of the process of sleeping, eating, drinking, showering, brushing his teeth, dressing, undressing… oh he could do that!

In a flash, Alphonse had himself undressed and twisting around in all sorts of ways to show his lost memories what it was like to be restricted by flesh and bone again and to know what it was like to move and not make a sound. The limitations of muscles and ligaments were nice to feel - he could stretch and feel the pull. The sight of his wiggling toes was fun to see. The general understanding over how his own human body looked, felt, and moved was wondrous to experience. Alphonse threw his clothes back on, savouring the feeling of how his head just popped through his t-shirt and his hair puffed up because of it.

Of all the things the little Elric wanted to accomplish, first and foremost he wanted to find a way to get his stupid older brother back, which was still the exact same plan as it had always been, he was just acutely aware of the whole situation now. He couldn't exactly scold Ed for sacrificing himself - Al had done it first, but he hadn't brought Ed back just so he could go and literally throw away his life! Brigitte even described Ed without a normal right arm or left leg, what the heck did he do with them? Scolding Ed for performing a human transmutation was hypocritical given their track record, but he wanted to give his older brother a good shot to the head for it anyways.

Al let himself fall back onto the ground and lay about, wishing the surface area of the Gate had some kind of texture to it, or sensation - hot, cold, pebbled, rough, smooth, something… really it had nothing.

Neither set of his memories did Al any good for his current situation at the Gate. Nowhere in the extra five years of his life did Al have any information about what the heck he was supposed to do about this situation. He was still stuck at the Gate with no idea how to get out of the situation and he suddenly worried about Diana's after the thrashing the Gate had given her as it tried to break her hold. The poor child was certainly the most innocent victim of them all.

Another string of questions struck Alphonse out of the blue and the new golden eyes looked around with concern. From the right shoulder he laid on, Al rolled to his stomach. He shuffled a twitch through his face before coming to the abrupt realization that his cheek, pressed into the sensation-less surface of the Gate's void space, could feel the surface!

Al picked his head up, pulling his face off the ground with a strange slurp.

A dark sludge, the deep red colour of blood, flowed from the base of the Gate and filled the clear space where Al had laid. The young Elric looked down at himself - the slick had stained his face, his hair, his hands, and his clothes. Al stood up, watching the liquid slowly fill in the space he'd laid, a sick feeling catching in his throat while he looked on. Brushing his hands off on his pants, Al walked through the mess, looking back at the impressions his shoe prints left before they smoothed away. He stopped nearly nose to nose with the black Gate and looked up to Diana; she lay silent.

Al crouched down to his knees again and skimmed his fingers through the liquid. It smelt like blood, and yes, when he put a dab down on his tongue, it tasted like blood. With a deep breath, Al put his hands down to the surface again and slipped them along the ground, pushing into the heavier resistance he felt beyond the Gate. When he cupped his hands, Alphonse successfully pulled a light swell of the red substance back to his side.

"Okay, so it's on both sides," Al sat back on his knees and looked up to the towering structure. There was no rumble that seemed to be forthcoming… not like last time - just the running of blood and silence. It was a lot of blood too; how many people would need to have died to create an expanding, shallow lake on both sides of this Gate? The number Al dreamt up was astounding and the thought made him queasy.

When Al picked his attention up from the substance spreading out around him, his eyes widened and he sat back, focus trained at the front of the Gate. An impression began to show in the black tar - it protruded towards him, like a stamp being pushed in from the other side. Amidst the overwhelming silence at the mouth of the Gate, Alphonse watched the impression strengthen in spots and begin to unevenly develop form. Shaking himself from the stupor of witnessing any substantial activity within the Gate, Al stood up again and stepped away to get a clearer look at the imprint.

Alphonse's heart raced the further back he stepped and the stronger the imprint became - he knew this image.

The youngest Elric brother soon stopped moving and stood silently, the bloody residue on his hands dripping from the tips of his fingers as he watched the scene unfold, his posture more rigid than the Gate had been at any point in time. The impression wasn't as big as the Gate, it might have only been the size of his arm span, but the longer Alphonse watched, the clearer the image became. He finally shook off his hands, wiping them on his shirt, eyes never leaving the activity of the black Gate. Breaths sounded heavier, eyes grew wider, his shoulders became tighter, and Alphonse Elric watched the impression of his brother's transmutation circle become clearly stamped into the black surface of the Gate's opened doors.

To Be Continued…